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Authors: Kerry Newcomb

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BOOK: The Red Ripper
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Esperanza's eyes twinkled as she watched a sultry señorita begin to dance seductively around a fire pit, much to the enjoyment of the men who began to gather around the dancer, cheering and eager to be teased. Elsewhere, a couple sauntered past, obviously in love and standing so close together they cast one shadow upon the stone path. Esperanza looked up and caught William
staring at her. Color crept to her cheeks. For a brief second he had lowered his guard, allowing her to glimpse the desire lurking behind the emerald chips that were his eyes.
“Why did you want me to be with you?” she asked. Suddenly she had a gnawing tightness deep in her gut. It was dangerous to be here with him, for she sensed a wildness in him, a raw recklessness that took her breath away, just to be this close, within arm's reach.
“Why did you come?” asked William, countering the question with one of his own. It was a way of stalling for time. He reached up to fidget with his scarf and found he'd lost it, probably among the rubble that used to be the Casa del Oro Hotel. Well then, let it be. He had no desire to risk Mama Gavia's wrath. But Esperanza's question still remained, like a lantern hung in the air between them, shedding light on those emotions and desires best left undisturbed. How much could he tell her? How much did he understand his own motives?
For the moment, he looked none the worse for the day's events. William had discarded his torn, singed clothes for woolen pants, boots of Spanish leather, and a shirt of brushed buckskin. A wide leather belt circled his waist, holding in place the pair of lethal knives with which he had forged a reputation. But his knuckles were burned and scraped, and beneath his fresh clothes his torso was streaked with cuts and patched with bruises. As he stood on the edge of the plaza, the firelight lent an almost sinister look to his features, revealing a dark side that one day he would want to forget. War did that to a man. Revolutions aren't made with rosewater.
“Being with you is a way of putting this day behind me. Look at them dancing where the blood has hardly had time to dry upon the earth.”
Esperanza grew quiet. She shrank against him, recoiling from the image. William shook his head, closed
his eyes for a moment, then put an arm around her and steadied himself. He wanted her. Then and there. And the devil take the consequences. To make love to her was to find life, to reaffirm some truth other than a day fit for dying. When she reached up and touched his face he looked at her and realized she was willing … waiting … in that moment of need, a gift for the taking.
My God … my God … .
What was happening? One wrong step and his future would be written in the ruins of a dishonored friendship. He loved her. Always had, always would. And the love showed him the way.
“I had better bring you home.” He barely got the words out.
She nodded.
But the look in her eyes left him weak in the knees. Maybe he'd curse himself all his days. But he would enter his house justified. Wallace offered his arm. She accepted. And with the utmost propriety, he walked the lady home. Neither of them spoke. It was for the best.
Lanterns were lit above the front door; an amber glow melted through the shuttered windows. He opened the wrought-iron gate and accompanied Esperanza across the front courtyard and up to the front door of the hacienda. She offered her hand and he bowed and brushed a kiss over the back of her hand. Her fingers tightened in his grasp. She leaned forward and whispered, “I would have gone with you.”
“I know,” Wallace said. And then he vanished into the night.
 
Esperanza headed straight across the foyer and had started up the stairs when her husband called to her from the study off to the side. She retraced her steps and entered the study, the presence of Don Murillo announced by the aroma of tobacco and coffee.
“My dear, I thought you would be enjoying the celebration.”
“A poor showing without you,” Esperanza said, crossing to his side and brushing his forehead with a kiss.
Dorotea cleared her throat. She was seated across from her brother, mouth downturned, her expression one of complete displeasure. “I have seen to your husband's wound and changed the bandage.”
“What would we do without you?” Esperanza asked.
“It was the least I could do.”
“Husband, shall I help you to bed?”
Don Murillo gently brushed his wife's hand away. “No no, I think I may just sleep down here. This chair is comfortable. And I have my books, my sweet bread, tobacco, everything I require. Go on to your room, my dear. But where is William? I thought you might bring him here. We have an extra room.”
Dorotea choked on her coffee. She had to set the cup and saucer aside while she cleared her lungs. Esperanza hurried to her side and began to slap the older woman on the back.
“Leave me alone. Quit pummeling me, for heaven's sake!”
“See what you've done, Husband. Nearly ruined her night. Don't worry; Señor Wallace had business elsewhere tonight.” She knelt by her husband. “I shall go to bed if there is nothing you need.”
“Only the joy you bring me,” Don Murillo told her. “I would dry up and blow away without you in my life, little one.” He took her hand and kissed it. How cold her fingers felt to his lips.
Esperanza excused herself and hurried from the room before the color creeping up her cheeks gave her away. She hurried up the stairs and darted down the hall to the master bedroom, overlooking the front courtyard. She
walked past the massive four-poster bed, avoiding her reflection in the mirrored vanity, stepped around a chiffonier, and opened the French doors. A cold breeze rushed in to the replace the warmth as the young woman stepped out on the balcony and leaned against the wrought-iron railing, gulping the cold night air while trying to will away the emotions warring in her heart.
“Oh, God,” she whispered. “Help me. Please help me.”
“You can't fool me,” her sister-in-law's voice drifted out from the room's interior.
“Go away.”
“My brother is old and blind when it comes to a pretty cheek.” Dorotea seemed to glide forward, her harsh features leaning forward, back curved, chin pointed and leading the way, her physique accusatory. “He was blind to you, but I am not.”
“Leave.”
“Not until I have said my piece.”
“No. I won't hear you.” Esperanza brushed past the woman and walked to the table. Dorotea followed her, but the younger woman brought her up short, confronting her with the deck of cards.
“Stay then, and know your destiny. Draw a card. No? I shall draw it for you.”
“I will have none of this,” Dorotea protested. She dreaded the cards and had no desire to learn what the future held for her.
“What is this?” Esperanza pulled a card. “Muerte?”
“No. You are a witch. Do not speak of this. I will not hear it.” Dorotea beat a hasty treat from the room, leaving Esperanza triumphant. She looked at the card in her hands, a gay little jester in dark green tights and a shirt embroidered with the moon and stars juggling seven cups, keeping them all airborne. Hardly death … but a bluff was as good as a pat hand.
Esperanza sat on the featherbed, her weight sinking into the covers. She stood and closed the doors, but not before checking one last time, just in case William had decided to wait below in the courtyard. She was both disappointed and relieved to find him gone. All that stirred below were dry leaves in moonlight, the husks of flowers, and dreams that could never be.
 
A voice, subtle, whispering on the fringe of his thoughts, drew William Wallace from Don Murillo's door and lured him down the Calle Dolorosa, the Road of Sorrow. He followed the voice beyond the warmth of the lantern-lit streets and the reassuring crush of bodies, past people who knew him, called to him by name and handed him a bottle of tequila. The revelers were oblivious to his troubled heart. They laughed and drank and made love and danced and saw the future as a bright array of bold successes. Their good will couldn't hold him.
The tequila seemed to help. It was the good stuff, with a caterpillar preserved by the alcohol floating in the bottom of the bottle. He drank it straight, with a lick of salt and a bite of lemon until both ran out.
Wallace stumbled through town as one entranced, images of a woman floating on the black sea of his thoughts. Then the voice called and chased all other regrets from his mind. He crossed the Rio San Antonio de Padua and gravely approached the silent, imposing, broken battlements of the Alamo, abandoned by all but the keening wind.
William
…”
The voice again, familiar, where … who? The blood ran cold in his veins. He stared at the empty bottle in his hands, glowered at its betrayal, empty indeed! He tossed the bottle aside. The sound of it shattering on the stones was enough to wake the dead.
“
William
…”
Wallace dismounted and left his horse by the main gate and walked inside. The great door creaked on its rusting hinges as he shoved it open.
“Samuel?” he whispered.
A north breeze stirred, caused him to shiver despite the warmth of the buckskin against his flesh. The mission was a motley collection of low-roofed barracks, a main church with an arched battlement, another two-storied adobe brick building that had once housed the priests, and a low wall that connected the barracks. There were artillery placements, stockade redoubts erected at the corners to defend the walls. A powder magazine had been built by the former occupants and set in the center of the main compound near the well. A twig cracked and Wallace spun about, dropping a hand to Bonechucker's hilt.
A coyote scampered across the parade ground and darted under a two-wheeled cart. Come the morning the critter would have to hand the place over to Travis and the militia. But tonight the little predator was the only commandant.
Wallace closed his eyes and slumped against the wall of the powder magazine, his weight bearing him down. Then, unwilling to yield, he forced himself to stand erect, squared his shoulders, and wiped the perspiration from his face that formed despite the coolness of the night.
“All right, you phantoms, out with you; I'm ready for you. Come on!” He drew both the dirk and short sword, Old Butch and Bonechucker, and slashed at the night shadows. The air swelled with the sounds of battle, the screams of the dying, the cannon's roar and the rattle of rifle fire, the clash of steel bayonets, hunting knives, clubbing rifles, and tomahawks. Texicans were fighting tooth and nail around him, the air thick with smoke and fire and the ground running red …
“Señor Wallace?”
Was this the ghost at last materializing to accuse him? All these years his brother's spirit had wandered aimlessly and unavenged. Wallace had set vengeance aside for a dream of empire, a kingdom of rolling prairie, of bright rivers and limitless horizons, of a big sky, this beautiful country, this Texas.
His eyes loomed large as the figure cautiously approached. “Señor Wallace, it is me.”
“Roberto?”
“Sí, my friend. I came to find you. My father and I were worried about you.”
“Jesus worries too much.”
“Come with me,” Roberto said. “Leave this place. There is the stink of death here.” Young Zavala glanced down at the knives pointed at him and breathed a sigh of relief when Wallace returned them to his belt.
“Your father is a good man,” Wallace declared. “And a damn fine blacksmith.” His speech was slurred, and he wondered if he was making any sense. Too many emotions this night, too many shades of right and wrong. What was a man to do? Why try to make sense of it? “At night all cats are gray,” he told Zavala. Then with Roberto at his side he walked out of the Alamo, leaving the tequila-fueled images of life and death behind in the shadows. He turned and for a brief second thought he spied another shape watching him, diaphanous, shifting. Yes, it was him, his brother; it could only be him. And his lips were moving. A warning?
“What?” Suddenly Wallace had a premonition that something terrible was about to happen, disaster was closing in on them. He saw dying men, a terrible battle, hand-to-hand fighting, a death struggle. Then the image was gone and so was its messenger. “Wait, Samuel! I don't understand.”
His outburst startled Roberto, who blessed himself
and kissed the image of the Blessed Virgin Mary stamped on the holy medal dangling against his chest.
“Samuel! What are you trying to say?” William shouted.
Zavala searched the moonlit mission for any other sign of life.
The two men were alone here. Alone. Whatever Wallace saw waited in the heart of darkness.
 
FOR A WHILE THINGS SETTLED DOWN IN TEXAS. The military courts were gone. In their place, Don Murillo Saldevar as the alcalde of San Antonio governed wisely and fairly. The Texicans trusted him. Stephen Austin recognized his limitations as a soldier and did not object when Sam Houston got himself appointed commander of the Texas Militia, a paltry little force bivouacked over by San Felipe, near the Big Thicket.
BOOK: The Red Ripper
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